The Whovianitis Files

Tug of War - Inside the Box

"Hello?" the Doctor called out. He was alone in an empty room, if it was even a room at all. Whatever it was seemed to be massive. It was almost like the Doctor was floating in a sort of darkness, with light being shone just on him. He could see perfectly fine, no strain being put on his eyes, but the problem of the matter was that there was nothing to see but the blackness. It seemed that the Doctor had gone to sleep and woken up here.

Of course, that meant this could all be nothing more than a dream, or some sort of simulation. He had gone through many of each of those before and knew just how realistic they could feel. There was no reason why this scenario wouldn't fall under either of those categories, nothing to prove it wasn't fake yet.

"Hello, Doctor," a female voice said. The Doctor turned around, half expecting to see something to give him any sort of idea where he was or what he was doing there. But no, this was not be the case.

There was nothing there but a woman. She was unmistakably beautiful, that was for sure. She was not exactly in her teenage years, but she still had the look of youth written on her face. Her dark hair was perfectly smooth and thick, as healthy as hair could possibly be. Each dark strand waved itself back and forth like the motions of a sea in a calm wind. She looked familiar in many different ways, but all together the Doctor did not seem to know her.

"Are you an Artangian?" he asked. Perhaps that was why she looked familiar, she had the same almost perfect good looks and similar hair to others he had met from the planet before.

"No," the woman said, scrunching up her nose, "of course not!" She looked insulted at this observation, and let out a sigh as she haughtily flipped her hair. The Doctor couldn't take her seriously as she acted like this, but there was still something that compelled him to find out more.

As the Doctor was trying to decipher who this woman was, his head started to pang. The Doctor's hand immediately leapt up to hold it, as if touching the source of the pain would somehow fix it. But then the sensation spread throughout his body. The Doctor's usually logical thoughts turned into a panicked jumble.

What's happening to me? Everything aches with flames, every last part of me. But as the Doctor began to writhe in pain, falling to the floor, for at least a split second he was able to distance himself from the pain in order to try and think properly. He had felt something like this before, it was true. The only difference was that he had no plans, no idea what was happening to him, and no way out.

I'm dying.

"You're killing me!" the Doctor growled, after he was able to recover himself long enough to ignore the sensations screaming from every inch of his body. It felt like his hearts were both starting to strain from how many times they were beating.

Soon enough, they were bound to stop. He stared at the woman, dumbfounded that she would turn so violent over something like being called an Artangian, which most people would take as a compliment.

"Oh, please," the woman said with a slight laugh. "I'm not killing you, someone else is. Someone on Earth. I merely provided the link."

As the woman's lips moved, suddenly the Doctor felt his pain easing. He wanted so desperately for it to end, and suddenly it began to fade away. Breaths came easier, his heart rate returned to normal, and best of all, he didn't feel any pain.

"What are you talking about? Someone killing me and you're just providing the link, ha!" the Doctor said, finally able to laugh out. "That makes you every bit as guilty!"

The Doctor was on a roll, finally able to speak out again. "Are you some sort of psychopath? You should know that I've dealed with those before and survived." In a far quieter and meeker tone, he added in, "Of course, I almost died and she ended up saving my life with all of hers..."